On Friendship & Fluff
by FanPanda13
Summary: A series of one-shots for my OTP (Zutara), and maybe a few of the other characters too, set at various points during and right after the cartoon. All fluff. No technical canon violations (yet).
1. Chapter 1

**Author Notes:**

Disclaimer: ATLA is of course not mine. I'm just borrowing

**Season 3, The Old Masters**

**Aang is missing. Zuko, Katara, Sokka, Toph and Suki have just arrived on Appa outside the walls of Ba Sing Se, after having followed Jun there in a quest to find Zuko's Uncle Iroh. Sozin's comet will be arriving soon.**

"It's been a long day," Zuko said looking at Ba Sing Se's broken walls as they landed. He felt tired just being here, and he could hear Uncle Iroh's voice in his head: "Prince Zuko, a man needs his rest." But this was the scene of his greatest crime. His worst betrayal. Would Uncle Iroh's voice be the same now? Or had Zuko lost his uncle's trust forever? Zuko cringed thinking about how poorly he'd treated the one person who had loved him unconditionally. "Let's camp and start our search again at dawn," he suggested, feeling the inevitable reunion he needed to have with his uncle creeping up on him like impending doom.

Everyone except Katara climbed down from Appa's saddle. "Shouldn't we get the tents?" she asked, looking down at them. Zuko started to climb up to help her, but Sokka stretched and yawned.

"For just one night?" he said. "Forget it. The sky is completely clear and it's still warm out here. Let's just sleep on Appa."

Katara looked down and it seemed from her facial expression that she thought Sokka was being irresponsible. But she was apparently too tired to fight him. She shrugged and climbed down with the rest of them. Appa promptly plopped down on his stomach, all six legs spreading around him. Sokka yawned, walked around to Appa's tail and sat down unceremoniously there. Suki followed him, and Appa didn't even move.

"Fine with me if you all want to smell like air bison tomorrow morning," Toph said, catching Sokka's yawn. She crossed her arms together, squared her feet, and quickly bent up a tent of earth in front of Appa. "Good night friends." She disappeared into the tent.

And that left Zuko standing awkwardly with Katara at Appa's side. She eyed him and he wondered if she was thinking the same thing he was: that sleeping arrangements like this were weirdly complicated when you had been accused of being romantically involved with the person standing next to you twice in the same week. Extra weird because one of those times had occurred earlier today. Extra extra weird because Katara had only just started treating him like anything other than a mortal enemy. A few months ago he'd viewed Katara as the obnoxious peasant girl who stood between him and the Avatar. Now they were going to be sleeping side-by-side on a giant bison? What was he supposed to do with that? Who was he supposed to put between her and him? Should he pretend like the close proximity wasn't going to bother him? Walk around anti-socially to the other side? Choose a paw and leave it to her to figure ou-

"Zuko," she said, interrupting his thoughts - he noticed then that she'd already claimed one of Appa's paws as her bed - "Are you going to sleep standing?"

"Uh, right." He sat down on the paw next to her, speedily deciding that his best option was to pretend like he hadn't been thinking about how awkward this was at all.

She glanced over at him as she settled down on her back, her arms crossed over her chest. "Don't worry," she said. "Appa sleeps hard. Aang does this all the time."

Zuko swallowed, nodded and laid down on his back too, folding his hands over his stomach. "I can't believe how much travel you've done with an air bison as your primary source of transportation," he said, surprising himself as he extended her words into idle conversation.

Katara laughed quietly. "We're frequent fliers," she said, and she patted Appa's paw as she talked. "This guy's been a trooper."

They both looked up at the stars coming out in the sky. Within minutes, Sokka had started snoring. Katara groaned. Zuko rolled his eyes. "Sokka is a master of stealth," he commented, and Katara had to cover her mouth to contain an escaping giggle.

"I was the best field trip, wasn't I?" she asked in a whisper. "Neither of the guys could have pulled off that flawless execution. Aang and Sokka probably both nearly got you killed."

"A few times," he agreed, and she started giggling again. The snoring got loudly erratic and she looked sideways at Zuko, holding her breath and pressing her lips together to hold in the laughter. But when the snores subsided to a normal buzz, she started up again, harder this time. It was contagious, and probably at least partially due to all the stress they were under, and Zuko started laughing too.

She closed her eyes, tucked her chin into her chest and held her hand to her forehead while she tried to calm down. "The prince _can_ laugh!" she said. "I didn't know."

"That is not fair!" he said, defending himself. "I have a great sense of humor."

"Uh huh." She was taunting him, but they had been through so much together recently, and he couldn't muster the annoyance he would normally have felt at someone for making fun of him like this.

"You don't know it yet, but my sense of humor is just as snarky as yours," he said, teasing back. They were talking with low voices and he had the strange sensation that he was somehow sharing secrets with her.

"Are you calling my sense of humor snarky?" she whispered, a shrill punch in her voice.

"Yep," Zuko said. "You have an unexpectedly dark side."

"I do not!"

"Uh huh," he said smugly.

Katara huffed lightly. "Oh yeah smart guy?" she said. "Well, you have an unexpectedly good side."

Zuko's heart twisted funny. He turned so he could see her. In the dark, most of her features were hidden, but there was enough light for him to see her eyes as she turned to face him too. She was still teasing, but there was sincerity there under the surface. "I bet we would have been friends if we'd met a lot earlier," he said, the thought slipping out past his tongue before he could think not to say it.

"You mean before you showed up at the South Pole to capture Aang?"

"I mean when I was a kid. Before-"

"Before your scar?" she said carefully.

"Yeah," he said. "I think you would have liked me better then."

"I like you fine now," she said firmly. "And we _are_ friends."

He watched her face. She still seemed sincere. "I guess we are," he said, then he turned again onto to his back and so did she, and it seemed for a while that they were both having their own thoughts. Zuko couldn't put a label on it, but there was something about Katara that made him feel good. Maybe it was that she made him laugh.

"Zuko?" Katara asked after a while.

"Yeah Katara?" he said.

She paused. "I'm glad you joined the group."

He smiled a little. "Me too," he said. "Good night Katara." He rolled onto his side away from her, nesting into Appa's soft fur.

"Good night Zuko," she said, and it sounded like she was shifting positions as well.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author Notes:**

Disclaimer: ATLA is of course not mine. I'm just borrowing

**Season 3, The Southern Raiders**

**Zuko and Katara are returning from their excursion, during which Zuko helped Katara find and face the man who killed her mother. **

Zuko never asked Katara about any of her actions. He didn't say anything about how she'd wiped those men off their ship. He didn't say anything about the blood bending. He didn't say anything about how she'd almost killed Yon Rha. Once, after it was over and they were walking back to Appa, she caught him looking at her. It was a sideways stare, but she couldn't tell what the stare meant. Whatever he was thinking, he kept his mouth shut and looked away the instant she saw him looking.

Katara didn't know what to say to Zuko either. She had thought that facing her mother's killer would heal her - that her anger would somehow be washed away. It was not. In some ways, she only felt disconnected and disappointed. There was a subtle shift inside her, but it didn't feel like a good shift. Instead, it was like a veil of innocence had fallen from her eyes. She had counted on facing a monster. Something despicable, destructive and power-hunger. Not an empty shell of a man whose only instinct was self-preservation. Knowing that kind of man existed made the world seem like a darker place to Katara. How was good supposed to triumph in someone who couldn't even feel anything?

Which brought her back to Zuko. For so long, Zuko had been the face of the enemy for Katara. He was the villain. The angry, awful person who chased them from the South Pole to the North Pole, leaving a trail of burning, terrorized villages behind. He was her personal rival and natural opposite, and he'd understood and used her weaknesses to his advantage: employing her mother's necklace to track them and try to entice her into helping him, using the strength he gained with the rising sun to defeat her at her weakest and take Aang away, and finally getting under her skin in Ba Sing Se by appealing to her compassion. The last had been the worst. She'd let her guard down with him for just a few minutes, and he'd betrayed her. She would never forget the way she'd felt seeing Aang fall after Azula shot him with lightning. Right then and there, Katara might have taken pleasure in killing Zuko.

Still, Katara knew from firsthand know-how that Zuko wasn't like Yon Rha. Everything Zuko did was woven with emotion. He might have been a bad person, but even when he did bad things, he was motivated by something, and that she understood. Maybe now more than ever.

Also, he had been right in one thing: at this point everyone else seemed to trust him. If he had wanted to hurt her or any of her friends, by now he'd had plenty of opportunity to do it. He was a good teacher for Aang - not exactly nurturing, but at least patient and respectful - and Aang was improving rapidly with his firebending. Sokka had completely warmed up to Zuko too. Ever since they'd come back from the Fire Nation prison, Sokka'd had what Katara could only call a man-crush on Zuko, and Suki had obviously forgiven him too. Katara couldn't deny that she was grateful to Zuko for helping Sokka bring back her dad, and even her dad had seemed totally fine with Zuko.

None of them had experienced quite the up-close-and-personal hurt she had from him. But then again, he'd just helped her work through something that had been very painful, and she wasn't sure anyone else could have done that with her. Would she ever have let any of the others see her like this? So enraged that it physically hurt? So torn up inside that she'd come close to killing someone? Aang hadn't truly understood. Zuko had never even questioned her.

"Do you want me to tell you how I lost my mother?" Zuko asked, looking back. He was at Appa's reins, and they had been mostly silent for an hour while they started their flight back to the campsite. His words were an abrupt interruption for Katara, who had been lost in her own thoughts. His eyes met her for a moment, but they were unreadable.

She nodded her head and moved up to the part of the saddle closest to where he was sitting.

He looked forward again and was quiet for so long that Katara thought maybe he hadn't seen her nod. Then he spoke. "It was right after my uncle's son died in the war," he started. "My father decided to _take advantage_ of the opportunity." Zuko spat the words out like he was spewing out poison. "He asked my grandfather - Fire Lord Azulon - to take away uncle's birthright. To make him the next Fire Lord instead. He was hungry for power."

Katara's face tightened and she gripped the saddle with her hands. Zuko's _dad_ was Fire Lord Ozai. There were no degrees of separation between them. Zuko was next in line to become Fire Lord himself. Or he had been, before he'd betrayed his country to join Aang. She kept that realization to herself, but Zuko looked back at her with a sad smirk on his lips.

"Bad luck," he said, as if he'd been reading her mind. "Anyway, Azulon was angry at my father for the request, and he decided to punish him - by ordering him to kill me."

Katara gasped and covered her mouth. Zuko touched his scar. "The desire to inflict cruel punishment on your own son sort of runs in my family." Her eyes widened but she didn't ask. "He was going to do it," Zuko went on. "But my mother found out. She knew my dad wanted the throne more than anything, so she came up with a plan to kill my grandfather instead. That night, she came and woke me up. She didn't tell me what had happened. Only that everything she'd done, she'd done to protect me. The next morning, she was gone. Her punishment for her crimes was banishment."

Katara wasn't sure how to respond. She was ill-equipped to handle this kind of story.

"Your mother died to protect you," Zuko said. "And mine killed to protect me."

Katara thought of what Zuko's mom must have gone through, knowing that her son's life was in danger. Knowing what she had to do to protect him - from his own father. The images she imagined sent shivers up her spine. "Do you know where she is now?" Katara asked.

"No," he said.

He didn't say anything for a long time after that, and Katara found herself lost for words again, still thinking about Zuko's complicated history and her own experience that day. She'd come so close to killing Yon Rha out of vengeance. Only the realization that killing him would only hurt her, without punishing him, had stopped her. But what if killing had been the only way she had to protect someone she loved? Would she have stopped then? She didn't think so. Zuko's mom had done exactly what she thought a mother should do to protect her son.

"I've never killed anyone," he said.

Her head spun back in his direction. Several minutes had passed. She had thought he was done with the conversation. She looked up at him in shock.

"I know," he said, his face grim. "You think I'm a terrible person and that all I did for three years is go around the world killing anyone who wouldn't give me the Avatar. But I've never taken anyone's life."

"And you weren't afraid of me killing the guy who killed my mother?" Katara asked.

Zuko didn't answer.

"What if I had done it?" she said, her voice a shriek.

He still didn't answer. "You didn't think I would, did you?" she said, and now it felt like an accusation. "You didn't think I'd go through with it!"

"I didn't know," he admitted. "I learned not to underestimate you a long time ago. Anyway, it was your fight. If you'd done it, I wouldn't have cared. I just wanted you to get closure."

"But why?" she asked.

"Because I hurt you," he said. "And I do care what you think of me. I needed to prove that you could trust me."

She stared at him and for some reason her heart was pounding inside. He was quiet, like he was waiting for her to pass judgment on him, when she had been the one waiting for him to pass judgment on her. She thought maybe he was holding his breath, and she was holding hers too. Did she trust him? The last few days with Zuko had been tactically effortless. In some ways, this was the easiest thing she had done since joining Aang. Coordinating with Zuko was instinctual. It was like having someone at her back who would naturally fill in the gaps without thinking or asking or planning. Was that something like trust?

"Maybe we still need to talk out the pirate thing," Zuko said, breaking the eye contact and looking away. Katara laughed, and the surprised look he gave her was so genuine that she laughed again.

"Maybe we can save that discussion for a few more years," Katara said.

"Okay," he said, sounding hopeful, and she liked the sound of that.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author Notes:**

Disclaimer: ATLA is of course not mine. I'm just borrowing

**Season 3, Sozin's Comet**

**The morning after Zuko and Katara defeat Azula.**

Zuko knocked on her door early in the morning. She wouldn't have been awake except she had barely been able to sleep. Both she and Zuko were in the Fire Palace. Word had come that Aang had defeated Fire Lord Ozai. He and the rest of their friends would be arriving via air ship that evening, and they would work out the details after that. Details such as when Zuko's coronation would be and what would happen now. Katara didn't even know how to process what the end of the war would mean for her, and the expansive, ornate guest room she had slept in with its lurking shadows made her feel isolated and afraid.

The knock was almost inaudible. It was as if he were afraid she was asleep or otherwise uninterested in visitors. But she couldn't think of anyone else it could be, and she got up fast to open the door. Zuko stood outside her room, the dark circles under his eyes indicating that he hadn't slept any better than she had.

"Zuko, are you okay?" she asked, but he just opened his mouth silently like a fish sucking in water, his eyes open and vulnerable, so she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room. The bandages were visible under his robes, which hung loose and untied from his shoulders. She tugged him toward a low couch. "Come on," she said, "let me look at those," and she didn't wait for him to protest before she slid around to help him out of the robes so that she could get a better look look at the bandage wrapped around his torso.

"It's not too bad," he said, but he flinched when she picked up his arm to try to get to the place where the bandages were tucked together.

"Zuko," she said, admonishing him. "Just let me help."

"I didn't mean to bother you for this," he said. She narrowed her eyes at him and made a noise that sounded like "tsk".

"This isn't a bother," she said, looping her arms around him to unwrap the long strip of cloth that was protecting the wound. The room was gray, the sun not yet having found the heavily curtained windows, but even in the poor light she could see the skin where the lightning had hit him. It was red and blistered. She bit her lip. "Sit," she said, pressing him down to the couch. He followed her command and let her help him lie back. She pulled up a stool so she could sit next to him.

Looking at the bare raw skin created a need for her to swallow back a fresh round of tears. She gloved her hands in water and pressed them to the wound, willing the harmed tissue to knit back together. He set his hand lightly on her arm while she did it, and the gesture was endearing.

"I couldn't sleep," he said as she concentrated on him.

"You have a good excuse," she said. "You're going to be the Fire Lord in a few days. That's a lot to think about."

"What's your excuse?" he asked insightfully.

She didn't answer. She didn't know how to answer. Her excuse had something to do with all the worries of tomorrow, and there were too many unknowns to resolve any of those worries. Right now all she could do was try to stay in the present. A present where Zuko (not the future Fire Lord) had come to her for help as a friend.

She focused on him. She could sense a lot of pain under the skin. She gently pulled up with the water, guiding the pain out and away from his body. He let his hand fall to the side while he breathed out quietly. Then she put her hands back down on him again, continuing the process. She wasn't sure all the pain had come from Azula's attack. Some of it felt deeper.

"You could stay here for a while," he said hopefully. "Everyone could."

"Maybe for a little while," she agreed, but she couldn't help wondering how short that time period would be, so she was back to worrying about tomorrow again. She knew by the look in his eyes that he didn't much like the idea of separation either. There was a bond between them that wouldn't get along well with distance. It was strange to think about. Zuko had been a presence in her life all year. They'd been on the same journey in some form or another since the day they'd left the South Pole. Even when they had been enemies, and he was just a a nightmare, he'd always been there. Now they had come to the end of the journey together, and now, when they were finally friends — good friends — their paths were about the diverge again. She hated it.

Her hands stopped moving. She had only been comforting a friend, so she wasn't sure why - while her troubled thoughts floated through her mind - that her eyes chose right then to notice the sharp edge of his jaw and the muscular angles of his torso. She looked away from him and she felt his stomach tense under her hands. He started to sit up, and she quickly tried to correct the mistake.

"I'm not done," she protested, putting both hands to his shoulders to hold him down, but that was only a discovery of something else that was muscular and hard about him, and she hoped he couldn't see her blush. He didn't fight her, though she knew he could have.

"Thanks again, Katara," he said, and it sounded like he thought he was troubling her. He didn't realize the extent to which healing someone else - especially someone she cared about - was meditative and emotionally healing for her as well.

"Stop thanking me," she said. "You saved my life. I'm just returning the favor."

"You returned the favor yesterday when you took down my sister," he said sincerely. "Now you're just being nice."

She wanted to kiss him. Or at least hug him. She couldn't think about why. Instead, she focused on the task of ignoring the physical body she was healing and instead seeking the pain below the surface, letting her hands glide up and down over the wounded area. There were so many physical remnants of pain twisted up inside him. Soon his hand gripped her wrist. "That's good, Katara," he said.

She caught his eye again.

"You can do more later," he promised.

She helped him back up, then he stood while she wrapped a cloth bandage around him tightly again, binding the wound. Her hands were shakier than before, and the close distance necessary for her to pull the cloth over his stomach, below his arm, around his back and so on made her own skin feel warm. She promised herself it was only the strange circumstance doing this to her. That there was nothing else to the heat flowing up from the core of her body except for the emotional height of the last few days. She rather quickly helped him back into his robes, but when the loose fabric still hung untied around him, and he stood looking at her, she fought to ignore the impulse she had to wrap her arms around his chest under the robes.

She had to step back. She looked away, then looked back, and the look he gave her then made her almost step forward again. She didn't. He did it for her instead, and she experienced it in slow motion when he reached for her and she instinctively reached back until their arms were around each other's backs. The side of his face brushed hers before she buried her face in his shoulder and he buried his in hers. She felt tears that weren't her own on the skin of her neck.

"Katara," he said, not letting go, and she had to think not to do something inappropriate, like touch her lips to his neck. "I'm really afraid. I don't know if I can do this."

"Yes," she said, and she did resist and she did not let go, because this was her friend and he was in pain and he needed her to be there for him as his friend. "You can."

—

Zuko hadn't slept. He hadn't even been able to bring himself to lay down on his bed, in his own room, in the place where he'd grown up. He knew he needed the rest, knew the next few days weren't going to be easier, knew he would have to sleep sometime, but for now his head was too full with thoughts that wouldn't let him go. For so many years of his life he'd perceived the crown as his rightful inheritance. Now he felt like a thief in the night, totally unworthy of becoming the leader of his own country. He feared his inability to bring peace to his people.

Katara was miles away. Or at least it seemed like she was. Really, she was only in a guest room a few hallways away. But for the last several weeks she had rarely been more than a few feet away. It had been startlingly simply to become accustomed to her standing near him. He expected it, turning naturally to look for her at his side or his back. Zuko had come to feel that he belonged with Aang and his friends generally, and she had been the one who solidified the feeling. Now that he was back home, where he truly did belong, he felt lonely without her so close.

It only made sense for him to seek her out the morning after the fight. He went to the room where she had slept like a ghost floating along a predetermined path. It was only when he started to knock that it occurred to him that perhaps she didn't feel the same way. Perhaps she wasn't feeling the emptiness he was feeling alone. He knocked quietly, afraid he'd misunderstood her.

She opened the door almost immediately and acted like she'd known it would be him.

She said something but whatever it was barely registered in his mind. He'd known when he left his own room that he needed to see her, but he hadn't anticipated the feeling that rushed over him once he did and it made him feel like a thief in a different sort of way. He still hadn't responded when she grabbed his hand and pulled him into the room, stopping him in front of a long, low couch.

"Come on," she said, "let me look at those." She was moving around him and her fingers were at the edge of the robes he'd slung over his shoulders so that he wouldn't be totally indecent when he showed up. She swiftly pushed the robes off and out of the way. Then she ran her hand lightly along the bandages covering his back, looking for the place where the binding started or stopped. She thought he was here because he needed a healing session.

"It's not too bad," he said numbly, not sure what to do now that he had the contact he hadn't realized he'd wanted. He let her raise his arm in her search and a sharp pang shot through him. She noticed.

"Zuko," she said, glaring at him. "Just let me help."

"I didn't mean to bother you for this," he said, but she just narrowed her eyes further as if he had said something insulting and made a noise that sounded like "tsk". She started to unwrap the bandage covering the wound and he stood frozen in place while her arms moved back and forth around him. Her face crinkled up when she saw the state of the wound.

"Sit," she ordered, using her hands to push him down onto the couch from his shoulders. He let her do it, and then she put an arm behind his back so that she could guide him down to lie flat. Quickly she had pulled a stool up and was sitting next to him, her hands pressing healing water to his stomach. It was so fast and he was so vulnerable to her that he didn't even try to stop her. All he could do was attempt to reciprocate the comfort she was giving him by weakly placing his hand on her arm while he felt his skin sutured back together.

"I couldn't sleep," he confided while she worked.

"You have a good excuse," she said. "You're going to be the Fire Lord in a few days. That's a lot to think about."

She understood. She didn't expect him to be taking this lightly, nor did she expect him to be celebrating. Her eyes looked tired too, though. Sleep must not have come easily to her either.

"What's your excuse?" he asked.

She didn't answer. She just continued to run her hands along the raw skin. Her healing abilities were impressive. It wasn't just skin and muscle and blood fitting itself back together. It was her channeling pain out of his body. He relaxed under her care and allowed himself to let go of the pain. It occurred to him that she was reaching something buried deeper than physical pain, and he wished he could do the same for her.

"You could stay here for a while," he said, though perhaps that was a selfish thing to say. Maybe he was wrong to think that if she stayed, they could drift into a more peaceful existence together. Maybe he wasn't something she needed. "Everyone could."

"Maybe for a little while," she agreed, but he knew the thing she wasn't saying. That soon she would leave. That soon he would be alone. He hated the idea with so much passion. The connection they'd developed was new and fragile. Distance might destroy it. He wasn't sure why that thought prompted his body to notice the soft touch of her hands and how intimately placed they were on him. Her hands stilled as though she too had become lost in her thoughts, and when she looked away, his stomach clenched. He started to sit up. He didn't want to risk making her uncomfortable. She turned back quickly, placing her hands on his shoulders to hold him down.

"I'm not done," she protested, and feelings he certainly had never acknowledged before arose within him, overwhelming the sense of self-preservation that told him he ought to get the hell out of there before he did something truly foolish.

He wasn't sure what he would have done if her eyes hadn't held the soft kindness of a friend. As it was, he didn't fight her protest. "Thanks again, Katara," was all he said. She was blushing.

"Stop thanking me," she said. "You saved my life. I'm just returning the favor."

"You returned the favor yesterday when you took down my sister," he countered, needing her to know there was mutuality in the affection that continued to grow between them. "Now you're just being nice."

She didn't respond, but her hands started to float along his body again. The healing seemed deeper and more intense. He tried not to notice the physical sensation of her hands drifting down toward his navel and up again toward his sternum, but she wasn't just drawing pain out. She was also stirring up something primal inside him. He held out until he couldn't handle it any longer, then he caught her wrist with his hand, stopping her. "That's good, Katara," he said, trying desperately to calm the intense feelings.

She caught his eye again with a question.

"You can do more later," he promised, not wanting her to think she'd done anything wrong. She seemed to accept that, and she helped him back up. Then he stood still while she bound the wound again, and he thought she might have felt some of the heat rising between them because her hands seemed unsure for the first time all morning and she worked fast to get him back into his robes. He shook the thought away quickly. She was, as it had once been mentioned, way too pretty for him.

More importantly, she was way too good. He could confide in her, and trust her to keep any secret or weakness she discovered in him to herself. He could have dragged her through all the mud and muck of his life, and she would have come out completely clean. She understood things about him that he thought no one else could, and he needed to know that this wouldn't be the last time he could call on her to lend him her strength and compassion.

There was no way in hell he was going to risk losing that for the sake of what was surely a moment of weakness on his part now. His long-term desire to maintain a strong friendship with this girl outweighed the temporary madness that made him want to know what would happen if he did something to turn up the rising heat.

She stepped back from him, looking aside and then looking up again to check his reaction, and they stood looking at each other. She was as vulnerable as he was. He couldn't kiss her. But in this moment he had little control over what he did do. He stepped forward, reaching out for her and feeling her reach back for him, the soft skin of the side of her face lightly brushing his while their arms crossed behind each other's backs. She rested her forehead against his shoulder and he leaned his head down into her shoulder, and this was why he'd come to her room this morning. Because he needed someone to cry with and she was the only friend he had capable of handling it.

"Katara, I'm really afraid," he confessed, not letting go. "I don't know if I can do this."

"Yes," she said, soothing him with her voice and also, thankfully, not letting go. "You can."


	4. Chapter 4

**Author Notes:**

Disclaimer: ATLA is of course not mine. I'm just borrowing

**Season 3, The Southern Raiders**

**On their way back from Whale Tail Island, Zuko takes Katara to his family's home on Ember Island.**

They needed to stop again. The rain had fallen most of the way back, and Zuko could tell from the way Appa had started listing to the side in the wind that the bison was getting too tired to fly. Plus, he was concerned about Katara, who drifted through long periods of silence. She'd stopped trying to bend the rain away hours ago, and he wasn't sure if she'd tell him when she reached the point where she was too cold and wet to keep going in the sky.

Anyway, he was soaked through and freezing and the opportunity to land was here. Really, it was the only logical choice.

"Hey," he said, turning back to Katara from the reins. "Can you give us some cloud coverage? I'm going to bring Appa down over there." He pointed out into the distance.

Katara looked through the telescope toward the land he was pointing at. "Over there?" she asked. "But there are houses on that island. It must be part of the Fire Nation."

"It is," Zuko said. "That's Ember Island. I, um, have a house there. Sort of."

Katara removed the telescope from her eye and looked at him like he was crazy. "You can't be serious," she said.

He chewed the inside of his mouth. "I am. The house is all closed up. My family never goes there anymore. My father hasn't been since he banished my mother years ago. It's the last place anyone's going to think to look for me. Or Aang."

Katara shivered in the rain. "Fine," she said. "Let's do it."

The whole point of going with Katara on this trip was to get her to trust him again, so it should have felt good that she was trusting him now, but when when they landed in the courtyard at his family's home on Ember Island, he only felt bad. He had the feeling that part of her willingness to trust him with the decision to come here had to do with the haunted look in her eyes and the way her shoulders sagged as she walked. He missed the glint in her eyes. He would have taken her "screw you, stupid firebender" smirk over this. He led the way to the back door. She trailed behind him, looking around like a person in a bad dream. The door was boarded up. He kicked it in. She followed him inside.

"Um, so, this is it, I guess. It's been in my father's family forever." It was dark inside. He held out his hand and willed fire into his palm so they would be able to see. He turned just in time to see her eyes flicker to the fire, and to note the flash of fear that she covered almost immediately with gutsy bravado. He tried not to think about that.

They floated through the house like ghosts, her quiet footsteps falling behind his. He wasn't exactly sure what to do now that they were here, and he wandered to the sitting room with the big fireplace and started lighting the sconces on the walls.

She stood in the center of the room, swaying on the balls of her feet. She'd barely slept in three days. He had vaguely thought of her sleeping in the room Azula used to sleep in, while he went to his old room, but it bothered him to think of leaving her alone like that here. She shivered again. He saw a pile of old firewood and started stacking it in the fireplace.

"We need to dry off," he said, lighting the fire and starting to peel off his upper robes, which were wet and clinging to his body. She blinked rapidly at him, shock panning over her face, and he realized with an idiotic start that maybe it was inappropriate to be taking off clothing with a girl in the room. Although she'd definitely seen him train shirtless before. He hastily removed the rest of his upper robes and was thankful for the dark shadows that hid his blush. She continued to look blankly at him.

"I'm going to look around and see if there's any extra clothes in the rooms upstairs," he said, trying to think of what she would need. "Um, do you want to clean up? I can show you the washroom."

She nodded. He took her to one of the big bathrooms, where there were more candles to light and dry towels in a linen closet. Then he left her there and began a hunt through the rest of the house. He found a few sets of old robes that had probably been his father's in a wardrobe and changed into them. He returned to the sitting room several minutes later carrying a stack of blankets and pillows. Katara was already back, taking dust covers off furniture. "I found some old clothes that were in my mother's closet," he said. "They might be too big for you, but-"

"Thanks," she said. "I'm dry."

He did a double-take. "How?"

"I'm a waterbender," she shrugged, like it should have been self-evident to him that she could just bend the water away.

"Right," he said awkwardly. They looked at each other. She pulled another dust cover off a couch. He set some of the blankets and pillows down on the couch she'd just uncovered. She sat down on it while he put the rest of the blankets on an identical couch that was just across from hers. He sat down on it. They looked at each other again.

"You have a nice house," she said.

He nodded though he hated this house and the memories he had of it. "Yeah," he said. "Thanks I guess."

They looked at each other again. Or they sort of looked at each other. If he held her gaze too long, she shifted her eyes to the side and crossed her ankles. If she was the one who forgot to stop looking, then he shifted his eyes and cleared his throat. He tried to think of something to say.

"This is weird, isn't it?" she asked, finally breaking the ice. She picked up one of the blankets and curled into it.

He wasn't sure how to respond. "No," he said. "It's not weird. Why would it be weird?" But it was weird. He flipped onto his back and stretched out on his couch.

"Right," she said, grabbing a pillow and hugging it to her body. "Because it's not like anyone would be surprised to find the last waterbender of the Southern Water Tribe in the Fire Lord's house having a slumber party with the Fire Prince himself. Totally not weird."

Zuko pressed his lips together to avoid laughing and looked sideways at her. She was laughing silently to herself, her shoulders shaking up and down. The minute he caught her eye, she stopped. But then her shoulders started shaking again, and he almost started laughing too except that she wasn't laughing anymore. Now she was crying, wiping tears furiously away like she was angry at herself for having them.

He sat up.

"Katara?"

She turned her face from him, burying it in the pillow.

So what was he supposed to do? Should he say something? What should he say? What would his uncle have told him to say? His uncle knew what to do with women. But everything he could think of Uncle Iroh telling him seemed wrong for this situation. What if Mai had been crying? Mai didn't cry. She didn't have emotions like that. Azula? Well he wasn't going to run away and hide from Katara.

It was still going on. Her face was hidden in the pillow. Her body was shaking. She was silent except for the heaving breaths she was taking. He should comfort her. Should he comfort her? How should he comfort her? He should definitely comfort her.

This was going to go poorly. She was going to kill him. He got up. She didn't notice. He took one step forward. She didn't look up. He took another step. He was stealthy. Only one more. He stood still looking at her. She was right. This was the most unlikely situation he could possibly think of already. In what world did _he_ - the heir to the Fire Nation throne - bring _her_ - a water tribe peasant - to his family's summer home on a vacation island? In what world did he - a _firebender_ - try to comfort her - a _waterbender_? What could he possibly know about how to do that? But she hurt. And he knew hurt. Maybe that's why he did take the last step necessary to reach her.

He sat down next to her like he was moving in slow motion. He set his hand down lightly - so lightly - on her shoulder as he sat. Because no way was she going to miss him sitting next to her, and he was afraid that if he waited to make contact, she'd know and she'd move and then where would they be? But he was so slow, because he had no idea if this was what he should do.

At first, she stilled. This wasn't the kind of hurt that could be surprised away, though. The crying started again. And he was already touching her, and his arm was going to get tired if he tried just to keep his hand on her in this minimal way, and it was just him and her and no witnesses and he had the feeling that they were both going to keep quiet about this later. So he put his whole arm around her. Then he turned sideways, tucked his foot under him, and put his other arm around her. He was wrapped around her wrapped in that scratchy old blanket, and she didn't kill him, so that was a nice surprise for him.

He didn't say anything. Except after a while he sort of did. He said "shh", even though he didn't care if she kept crying, and "I know", even though he didn't know, and "it's okay", even though it wasn't. He had been leaning over her. His back hurt. How was she breathing into that pillow? He tugged on her shoulders. It was easy to pull her back toward him. She twisted into his chest without really looking at him. They both shifted so that he could lean against the arm rest and she could lean against him, and finally finally she wasn't crying anymore. Or at least her chest wasn't heaving and tears weren't coming down actively anymore, though she still shuddered in his arms.

She was in his arms.

Now it was weird.

"I almost killed him," she said.

He stroked her hair. (Since when was it okay to do that?) "Yeah," he said. "I have kind of a long list of people I can say that about. Um, including you."

She scrambled out of his arms, scooted to the other side of the couch and looked at him like she'd just realized what was happening.

He got the message. "Are you hungry?" he asked, standing up. "I'm going to see if there's anything I can salvage from the kitchen."

"I think we still have seal jerky," she said, her voice moving though she was looking at him from a frozen position on the couch.

The thought of more seal jerky made him want to barf. "No thank you," he said, and he started to walk away.

"Wait," she said.

He turned around and looked at her.

She looked at him. There was a lot of looking going on tonight. More than normal.

"What?" he asked.

Was she going to start crying again?

"Um, thank you," she said.

"It's okay," he said. "You were upset."

"No," she said. "Not for that." She frowned and her eyebrows pinched together. "I mean, yes, thank you for that too. But also, thank you. For helping me. For helping me find the man who killed my mother."

He blinked.

"You're welcome," he said, and he turned toward the kitchen again. But on second thought, he turned back. Her eyes were still on him. He didn't recognize the expression on her face. "Katara," he said, "I'm really sorry. For everything."

"You already apologized," she said.

"I don't think I did," he said. "I mean, to you. You trusted me when we were together in Ba Sing Se, but I didn't trust you. I let my sister convince me that there was still a chance that I could go home. I knew better, and I chose to be selfish and cowardly instead of doing what was right. It was dishonorable and wrong, and I'm sorry I hurt you and even sorrier about what happened to Aang because of it."

She didn't answer. He left the room. When he came back from the kitchen, she was lying under the blanket with her back turned to him. The next morning, she was still sleeping soundly when he woke up to the sunlight coming in through the boarded windows. He left her a note that said he'd gone to get Aang and the others and would be back later. She needed time, he thought, to sort it all out on her own. And he needed the same.


End file.
